Fanning the Flame

Fanning the Flame is a historical romance by Kat Martin, published by Pocket Star Books in 2002 and the third novel in her Fire Trilogy of Regency-set stories of love and criminal investigation.

Jillian Whitney has the right family and no money, and the arrangement that keeps a roof over her head keeps the gossips of the ton busy as well. Adam Hawthorne, the mysterious Earl of Blackwood, meets her at the height of the talk and is intrigued enough to want her away from her protector. Then the protector is murdered and Jillian is the only suspect, which leaves her with no choice but to run. The earl's protection keeps the law at a distance but does nothing about the attraction between them, or about her conviction that a man of his standing would never marry a woman marked by scandal.

The book mixes the social world of Regency London with a murder investigation, and its plot turns on whether a man who is able to shelter her is also a man she can trust. Each novel in the trilogy gives a different couple the same mixture of courtship and pursuit, with the earlier volumes introducing faces who return here.